El oh vee ee is Complicated
by AZ1087653
Summary: G1 Prowl tries to learn a four letter emotion using nothing but logic.
1. Chapter 1

This is a story for G1 Prowl. I like the description on his toy box that says "he can't see the forest for all the trees". I recently had an issue that reminded me of this saying; hence the story.

I do not own the character; he was created before I was born. It's also safe to say I won't own him when this story is over either.

No real warnings, though I tend to out-think things at times too, so I make no apologies.

/GG/

El-oh-vee-ee is Complicated

The funny thing about humans, if you can call it funny, is their ability to run things on pure emotional adrenaline without using logic. A certain situation is usually handled with what one party thinks is best for the other, based primarily on what the one in charge wants to do. Occasionally there have been humans who will do what is best for others and not for themselves; but this happens rarely and even then has some underlining meaning to the situation.

"Let your heart be your guide." He had heard humans tell one another. This phrase, of course, meant nothing to him. How could a lump of flesh actually guide what a person thinks and feels. He had decided it couldn't, but his thoughts had sparked a glimmer of curiosity and he decided he needed to find out what that four letter word actually meant.

/GG/

Prowl walked down the corridor toward the recharging units; face plastered on a data pad since his audio sensors would tell him exactly where he was going. Three Earth weeks had been spent on trying to figure out the human emotion; and he was no closer to defining it than he was when he had started.

Chip had been nice enough to give him a disk copy of the Bible, so he could look read through what many had considered the ultimate resource on the subject. An almighty creator, who had written words of wisdom. Chip had also included other works revolving around other religions.

He was in the middle of reading Proverbs, looking for the answer in chapter 10, verse 12 as he walked around the corner. His head lifted slightly as he saw Carly walking through the hall, rocking the infant human and singing to him.

Affection was definitely part of the definition of that which he was trying to discover. Was this the emotion affection playing out in front of his very optics?

He watched for a few minutes as the childish song reverberated throughout the corridor, lulling the child into sleep.

"Carly?" He spoke softly to the human female, something he rarely did.

"Hi Prowl." She answered him, in an equally soft voice.

"Tell me about that, please." Prowl said.

Carly laughed slightly, making Prowl think he should rephrase this request.

"Tell you about what?" She asked before he could speak again.

"Tell me why you sing to that human child and walk it up and down the hallway." Prowl said.

Prowl watched Carly's eyes get wide and he wasn't able to tell if the reflex was from confusion or amusement; or both.

"Well," She started, eyes rising upward in a facial expression indicative of pondering. "I just fed Daniel and singing to him while in motion seems to help him fall asleep."

Prowl searched for a response in his databanks. "Is it not better to let offspring learn how to put themselves to sleep, to avoid complications in the future?"

"He's only a few months old Prowl, I doubt my helping him to sleep will have any lasting effects." Carly answered him.

Prowl gazed at the sleeping child. "Why do you do that? Sing to him and move with him, I mean?"

Prowl watched as Carly's facial expressions became slightly contorted with confusion. "Because I love him."

"How does doing something that could possibly have some long term repercussions constitute love?"

"I don't understand how there could possibly be repercussions to my singing to my child?"

Prowl didn't miss a beat with the answer. "If the child learns to fall asleep to the sound of your voice singing, then what will happen if it suddenly goes away? The child may not know how to fall asleep, causing irreparable damage."

He watched as the human female slowly shrunk back into herself, indicating she didn't really like this topic of conversation.

"I don't know where you got your information Prowl." She said quietly, hugging the child close. "But you have a lot to learn about human emotions."

Prowl watched Carly walk away as quickly as she could. He could tell she was upset by her body language, but he wasn't fazed in the least. True, he was no closer to understanding love than he was to begin with, but he would continue on his quest.

He started up down the hallway again, reading the Bible from where he left off.


	2. Chapter 2

Less than seventy-two hours from his conversation with Carly, Spike was at the door. Prowl watched the human male enter the room and plod toward him. Spike was an unusually emotional person at times, so Prowl was sure the reason for his visit involved Carly's hasty departure.

Prowl cocked his head as he watched Spike start to pace in front of him. He could see a few of his comrades from the corner of his optics; all watching the small human walk back and forth in front of the second in command.

"Walking back and forth isn't going to get you anywhere." Prowl finally said after almost ten minutes of silence.

"This helps me think, I don't know how to word this." Spike said looking up at him.

"The best way to approach the situation would probably be to just speak your mind." Prowl answered.

Prowl watched as Spike quit walking and pursed his lips together. "What was the conversation you had with my wife the other day?"

"I was trying to understand the human emotion love; the dictionary describes it as affection. Carly was showing your offspring affection; so I thought I'd ask why?" Prowl deadpanned.

Spike's eyes did an almost exact replication of Carly's when Prowl had asked her why earlier that week.

"You don't know about love?" Spike asked, clearly surprised.

Prowl shook his head, realizing he had spoken more in the last week than he had in months previous. "There is no logic in emotions."

"So you don't feel love for anyone…anything?"

"I don't see a reason to, when love tends to make a person blind." Prowl said, remembering the phrase from earlier study.

"That's sad." Spike said, eyes clearly showing a small amount of pity.

"Could one not also respond the same to you for having to deal with said emotion?" Prowl asked, trying to see if this conversation would allow him a glimpse of what love is.

"I don't think so."

"And what if my reply were to be the same as yours. Would you not be willing to explain this emotion to me, even though I do not feel it?"

"You feel curiosity, don't you? So you must feel some sort of emotions."

"To say that curiosity is an emotion is to define it with an emotion. I only ask as a request for knowledge. Requesting is not an emotion."

Spike looked around at the other Autobots in the command center, all of whom were listening in on the conversation like it was the juiciest gossip in the last millennium. Was the man looking for assistance from Prowl's comrades, or just looking to see who was in the room with them for the first time.

"What don't you understand?" Spike finally asked.

"Love is supposed to be absolute devotion to someone. If you love someone and are absolutely devoted to them, how can you bring someone else into the mix?"

The room was silent again for less than a minute before Spike spoke again. "Wow."

"If you and Carly are completely devoted to one another, then bringing another into your devotion would cut your devotion into parts, taking out the equation of love, since love is an absolute whole. You no longer have a whole."

"Love can multiply Prowl, so there is a whole for Carly and a whole for Daniel."

"There is no logical way to have two wholes. A whole is absolute." Prowl countered. "So, logically, there is no way for a person to love someone else if they give even a small amount of 'love' to another."

Prowl watched Spike turn inward just as Carly had done, obviously out of ways to answer his questions or just deciding they weren't worth his time.

"Spike." Prowl heard Ratchet from the other side of the room. "If you cause Prowl's CPU to crash, thereby causing me to spend a few days trying to help him regain consciousness, I'll be pissed, as you humans so eloquently put it."

"I'm not going to shut down Ratchet." Prowl stated evenly.

"This line of questioning will end up that way."

"Ratchet's right Spike." Bumblebee spoke up. "Let me take you home and we'll let Jazz try to explain it to him."

Prowl watched Spike head out of the room. There was another opportunity lost because of human emotions. That and Autobot nosiness.


	3. Chapter 3

Prowl buried his quest for a few weeks after Megatron decided to commandeer a factory with a few hundred workers. He was demanding all the energy of the sun, for the foreseeable future, in return for the lives in the factory.

After a small skirmish and a hasty retreat from the Decepticons, Prowl was eventually cornered by Jazz. Being the one who adopted other cultures' idiosyncrasies the quickest, Prowl was rather surprised he hadn't thought to speak to Jazz first.

"You wanna know about love." Jazz asked him, while the two drove into the city where they were to make an appearance in a fundraiser.

"Love is illogical." Prowl stated as the two drove.

"You're never going to learn about love if you keep looking for the logic in it Prowl. Love, as well as any other emotion out there, is never going to be logical."

"From what I've observed, human love today seems to be a diluted mess of what it was before, if ever."

Jazz stopped and transformed; causing Prowl to stop and transform too.

"You're missing the whole point man." Jazz said lightly. "Love is a feeling you feel when you care about something."

"Then why is love defined in many societies as giving without expecting anything in return?"

"There isn't an actual definition of love. As I see it, you can't have a definition of any emotion, though you can have a definition of your reactions to the emotion."

"But every culture has a definition of emotions."

"And," Jazz said, putting his arm around his friend. "Just like every society has it's minor differences, so they also have slight differences in their definitions of emotions."

Jazz transformed quickly and started down the road again; Prowl following a short distance behind.

"Where's the logic in every society having a different way of describing these emotions? Even we have different ways of describing them." Prowl asked after a few miles of silence.

"I'm going to show you what love is Prowl. That's why I requested you come with me to the hospital dedication."

"How can you show me something intangible?"

"You may not be able to touch love with your hands, but you can be touched by love in your heart."

"I don't have a heart, and neither do you."

"We're not discussing what you and I have or don't have right now. Let's save that for a later time." Jazz said; slowing down to the speed limit set for the city.

"Do you feel love Jazz?" Prowl asked as he and Jazz stopped at a stop sign.

"Yeah man, I do. I don't know if there's a way to describe it to you, I'm sure gonna try though."

"What does it feel like…to you?" Prowl started moving again.

"Like nothing else matters." Jazz replied, pulling up to the hospital parking lot and transforming in front of the spectators; Prowl transformed behind him.

"If nothing else matters, then how do you get anything done?" Prowl asked, nodding politely to those who waved and pointed.

"It's not easy, but doing your job is something that needs to be done." Jazz answered, kneeling down and letting the children crawl over his hands and feet.

Prowl cocked his head and watched Jazz play with the young humans. "Then you aren't completely devoted, meaning you don't actually love what you love."

Jazz stood up, holding a couple kids in his hands, giving them, what appeared to be, the biggest thrill in their lives.

"That's still only one definition of the word. Let me show you another." Jazz said, indicating the podium a few hundred feet from their current position. "You just watch the humans, and you'll see what love is."


	4. Chapter 4

Prowl stood on the podium quietly; watching and listening to the humans at the benefit. He and Jazz were there as part of an auction; donating their services to the highest bidder. The money was going to support the children's wing of the hospital.

He watched as some people made generous donations, in the tens of thousands range. Some local artists had donated various works for the auction. Prowl wondered why Jazz hadn't talked Sunstreaker into donating a piece. If money was what the humans wanted, a piece by an Autobot would have brought in a small fortune.

Jazz had been bought by a rich, old human, who probably wanted to use him for show, while Prowl had been bought by a movie director who wanted to use him in a chase scene. Over and over again, Prowl watched as human after human donated money or bid on something for their private collections.

"You look lost in thought there Prowl." Jazz whispered as the auctioneer started rambling about a nude piece done by a student from a local high school.

"I'm not seeing the love." Prowl stated.

"All these people are giving money to the children's wing out of love." Jazz said, pointing toward the local patrons.

"They're all receiving something for their money."

"Some of them are, but there are a lot of them just donating."

"They will undoubtedly write the donation off as a tax deduction and be out little to no money at all come tax season." Prowl said, watching the auctioneer start on a date with a local celebrity.

"You're kind of a pessimist Prowl." Jazz answered, emitting a slight chuckle.

"I'm not being pessimistic, I'm being logical." He watched as the lady in the audience who won the celebrity started to cheer herself. "That book that Chip gave me, the Bible, said something about all the rich people giving spare change while someone gave all she had. I don't see any of these people giving all they have to help the hospital."

"People have to live Prowl."

"Didn't the Beatles say that all you needed was love?"

"I didn't know you knew who the Beatles were." Jazz said, laughing loud enough for some of the spectators to glance their way.

"I've been doing my research."

"You can't research something like this. You just have to let it show itself when it's ready. I don't think you're ready Prowl." Jazz said, waving toward those whose eyes were on them.

"Maybe it's everyone else who's not ready to move on." Prowl answered. This caused a silence in Jazz the likes of which Prowl had never seen, and it didn't bother him one bit.

/GG/

The drive home was silent. After both he and Jazz had made their arrangements with their purchasers, Prowl started home. Jazz was only a few miles behind him, but he knew the mech would catch up to him pretty fast.

The words Jazz had spoken hadn't made much of an impression on him, though he knew his words made quite a big impression on all three of his teachers. No, the thoughts running through his CPU weren't going to cause a sudden crash. Neither were they enough to give him a definitive answer.

He did decide that love is complicated.

Prowl wasn't one to give up on complicated issues, but he didn't see a reason to understand what the emotion was or what it could do to people. Had his quest been enough to satisfy his curiosity? Or was there no way to satisfy his curiosity; rendering the quest a useless endeavor?

There was no concrete answer to his question; no logical reason to believe in such an emotion. Based on his findings, Prowl was perfectly content to put the query behind him and concentrate on something else.

After all, love is just a four letter emotion and a word without meaning.

To someone who is logical, that is.

/GG/

I appreciate your taking the time to read this short story. Thanks.


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